Global SO2 monitoring from satellite

Introduction

SO2 slant column data is derived with a DOAS technique from measurements by satellite instruments such as GOME, SCIAMACHY and GOME-2. Combining this data with an appropriate air-mass-factor (AMF) gives SO2 total vertical column data. The service provides the SO2 data in the form of global as well as regional maps.

Example results

China	Central Russia
Monthly average SO2 field over China, determined from SCIAMACHY observation in Feb. 2005. The SO2 is related to anthropogenic activities.	Dedicated SCIAMACHY SO2 map of a patch over South Africa that triggered an alert on 12 June 2009. The SO2 is probably from to anthropogenic activities.

Data delivery

NOTICE:   the service has been reconstructed; the archive is not fully (re)processed yet.

data product instrument	off-line data archive	near-real-time processing and notification
		data archive	operational
SO2 columns GOME-1	--	[n/a]	[n/a]
SO2 columns SCIAMACHY	Jan 2004 - Jul 2010	May 2009 - present	Sep 2006
SO2 columns Aerosol index OMI	Aug 2004 - Jul 2010 --	Jul 2009 - present Jul 2009 - present	Oct 2007 Jul 2008
SO2 columns GOME-2	Jan 2007 - Jul 2010	May 2009 - present	Feb 2008

Notes:

• Near-real-time service
  Provides daily SO2 column data in the form of maps of the world and selected geographic regions, and as data files covering the whole world.

• Off-line data archive service
  Provides daily, 3-day composite and monthly SO2 column data in the form of maps of the world and selected geographic regions, and as data files covering the whole world.

• Data files
  Daily data at satellite orbit coordinates are given in the form of ASCII files, with the orbits of one day in a zip archive.
  Daily, 3-day composite and monthly data are given on a latitude-longitude grid in HDF files; these are not available in the near-real-time service.

• SO2 related to volcanic emissions
  This is covered by the Support to Aviation Control Service.

Documentation

• SO2 column densities
  • On-line product information with detailed background information on the retrieval methods, on the data file format, etc.
  • Downloadable documentation, which includes a print of the on-line product information and a report based on that: "Sulphur dioxide monitoring within TEMIS", which also applies to the SO2 data provided within PROMOTE.
  • References to papers related to SO2 retrieval

Background information

• General background information on SO2 in the Earth's atmosphere Services

• Predefined regions of the Service

• On-line product information

Core users

Participating institutes and main people there

• BIRA-IASB -- Jos van Geffen, Michel Van Roozendael -- contact form
• DLR -- Pieter Valks
• KNMi -- Ronald van der A

Jos van Geffen, last modified: July 2009